


Hidden in the Stardust

by Universe_Z



Series: Stardust [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Chameleon Arch (Doctor Who), Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Episode Fix-It: s04e17-18 The End of Time, Family, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Universe_Z/pseuds/Universe_Z
Summary: The Doctor was still hoping to avoid his death, he had even found a new companion after loosing Donna, but that hope disappeared the moment he confronted the Master. Except, he didn't die. Then when he tried to give his life for Wilfred, his new companion gave her life for his. The real trick? She didn't die either.
Series: Stardust [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840552
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All rights for Doctor Who go to the original creators.  
> Please enjoy!

Everything was over the moment Wilf stepped into the radiation chamber, the Doctor just didn't know it yet. 

He was much too busy in that moment to be paying much attention to Wilf or any of the other humans scrambling behind him as he faced off against the Master and the Time Lords. The Doctor could vaguely register shouting and scrambling (there was always shouting and scrambling at moments like these), but he spared half an ear to listen for his companions.

He could hear Wilf reassuring one of the scientists. Good. He was alright.

The Doctor listened for his other companion, Thea. A flash of fresh guilt flew through him. He'd barely known Thea. He'd had trainers that lasted longer than he had known Thea and he went through trainers like some people go through post-it notes. They hadn't even been traveling long enough for him to know if she preferred jam or marmalade on her toast in the morning, and now he was probably going to die. She might die too, but that was definitely not happening today.

He could hear her now, getting the scientists out of harm's way while not moving a step to get out of it herself.

How did he keep finding people like this? For once why couldn't he have a companion who ran away and stayed safe?

Never mind that now. Right now, the Doctor had bigger issues. The Master. The Time Lords. He focused. He could do this. He could save everyone and come out the other side. His song would not end today.

Everything happened so fast. First there was just the Master and Rassilon, and the high council of the Time Lords, but then the drumbeat brought Gallifrey itself.

The Master was thrilled. The Doctor was horrified. If Gallifrey was coming back the war was coming back with it. The atrocities of the Time War the Doctor had given everything to end would be here. And for what? Just so the Time Lords could live as beings of pure consciousness. Too bad for the rest of the universe that meant destroying time itself.

No.

No way.

He couldn't let that happen.

The Doctor's fingers tightened around the handle of the gun in his hand. He had almost forgotten it was there. There was a time when he'd said nothing would ever induce him to raise a gun in anger. Ha. He had been younger then, so much younger and so much stupider.

He knew he had to shoot. But what choice could he make that would save the universe? Which would it be? The Master? The Time Lords? 

Everyone was talking in turn with the pointing of the gun, trying to convince him to shoot one or the other.

"Kill me."

"Kill him."

"The final acts of your life is murder, but which one of us?"

Then he saw the woman standing behind Rassilon uncover her face. He'd barely noticed her before now. In that moment it's like she was the only person in the room that truly sees him. Her eyes flick behind him. It's only for an instant, but it's enough.

The Doctor knows what to do.

He pointed the gun at the Master.

A moment of fear flashed over the Master's face. 

"Get out of the way." The Doctor ordered, waiting just long enough for his oldest friend to be clear before shooting the white point star that was drawing Gallifrey to Earth.

The room shook like an earthquake as Gallifrey was pulled back into hell.

Of course, it couldn't be that simple. Rassilon was going to kill him and the Doctor was ready. He had been told so many times that his song was ending, maybe it was time.

"Get out of the way." The Master's voice ordered. He was staring at Rassilon with the clearest determination the Doctor had seen in him in a long time. There wasn't any madness in that gaze, not anymore.

The Doctor stumbled backward as the Master shot arcs of energy into Rassilon's chest.

"You did this to me. All of my life!" The Master was screaming. "You made me!"

The Master counted off that drumbeat one final time, that pattern of four that had haunted him for so long. With each count, he pushed the Time Lords back. Back into the Time War, back into the hell they themselves had made. With one final scream, they vanished into white light.

When everything finally stilled, the Doctor was sprawled on the floor. He could feel chunks of broken glass poking through his suit, he could feel the burn of injuries only beginning to heal.

He was alive.

"I'm alive." His voice shook as he pushed to his knees.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn't. He had known that he was going to die his song was ending but...

"I'm still alive." It seemed more real by the time the Doctor could stutter the words out a second time. He wanted to laugh, but it just came out as gasps. Maybe this wasn't the end. Maybe he didn't have to die. Maybe he still had a chance to make this life into something to be proud of. Maybe...

_Tap tap tap tap._

No.

It couldn't be.

He was alive, just please-

Please, no.

_Tap tap tap tap_

Four knocks.

He was still going to die.

He couldn't run. Not from this. Why did he ever think he could run?

_Tap tap tap tap._

It was Wilf. Wilf had trapped himself in the radiation booth to free whatever terrified scientist had had the misfortune to be trapped in there when everything went to hell.

Why did he keep finding people like this?

Companions who were so... good. Who burned so brightly that they both got burned.

"They gone then? Good-o." Wilf had been silent the whole time. He and Thea had just stayed quiet and watched the whole thing without saying a word.

The Doctor almost wished Wilf hadn't said anything, had let him bask in the glory of being alive for just a few moments longer.

"If you could, uh, let me out?" Wilf said. The room was strangely quiet except for his voice and a pained buzzing from the radiation booth.

"Yeah."

"I mean this thing seems to be making a bit of a noise."

"The Master left the Nuclear Bolt running. It's gone into overload."

"And that's bad, is it?" Wilf asked, trying to keep his voice light but letting the fear seep in.

"No, because all the excess radiation gets vented inside there. Vinvocci glass contains it. All five hundred thousand rads, about to flood that thing." The Doctor looked the radiation booth up and down. He could only see one way to fix this.

"Oh. Well, you'd better let me out, then." Wilf knew exactly what was going on, even if he was pretending not to.

The Doctor spared a glance to Thea. She was standing silently next to the booth, next to Wilf. She probably had been this whole time. Thea knew what had to happen. He wouldn't have been surprised if she had figured it out before he did. She had always been like that, just a little bit more intuitive than she should be. It had puzzled him at first, but it didn't matter now. Some other man would walk away from all this and he would be the one to figure it out. That is, if Thea didn't turn and run the second he changed.

He wouldn't blame her if she did.

"Except it's gone critical. Touch one control and it floods. Even this would set it off." The Doctor made a vague motion with his sonic screwdriver before putting it back in his pocket.

"I'm sorry."

"Sure."

"Look, just leave me." 

The worst part was that Wilf sounded sincere.

"Okay, right then, I will." The Doctor nodded, looking around, moving because he didn't know what else to do, but his eyes betrayed him. "Because you had to go in there, didn't you? You had to go and get stuck, oh yes. Because that's who you are, Wilfred. You were always this. Waiting for me all this time."

The Doctor's voice almost broke. He turned away, looking down in a vain attempt to hide the tears welling in his eyes.

"No really, just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time."

"Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important." He tried to sneer. It didn't work. "But me? I could do so much more. So much more!"

The Doctor's agonized voice echoed in the empty room. 

"But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair!" He screamed, knocking some papers off a desk. The answers to all the questions in the universe could have been on those pages and the Doctor wouldn't have cared. In that instant he could see nothing beyond his own pain.

He went quiet for a long moment. When the Doctor spoke again his voice was broken with the weight of everything he had said. Everything he had done. Everyone he had hurt.

"Oh. Oh. I've lived too long."

Wilf tried to stammer out a protest.

Thea was staring at him.

He stared back at her for a moment. They still barely knew each other, but she had helped him more than she knew. When they first met, she had somehow seen the pain he was in. The pain from Rose, from Donna. 'If you want to talk' she had said, 'that's the good thing about strangers, you don't have to prove anything to them'. He hadn't wanted to talk. He still didn't, but he wanted the chance. Now he would never get it. Maybe another him would, but he wouldn't. He would be dead.

"No." Thea said firmly. 

He didn't even have a chance for the word to sink in before she gave him a quick hug and then backed away just as fast.

The Doctor suddenly realized he was handcuffed to a table.

Both his hearts stopped when he realized what she was planning.

"Thea! No, you can't!" He strained against the cuffs, but they wouldn't budge. He felt around his many pockets for the sonic, but it was in Thea's hand.

This couldn't happen. Not again.

The Doctor's mind flashed back to the Library for just a moment. To River Song. To a scene just like this one.

River. Rose. Donna. Astrid and Jack and Martha and Sarah Jane and Mickey the Idiot. He lost everyone. He almost didn't make it the last time. He wouldn't make it this time.

He wanted to beg, "please, no," but nothing came out.

"Love, no. Let me do this. I've had my life; you've still got all of yours ahead of you." Wilf was pleading from the other chamber. He reached for the console, but a word from Thea stopped him.

"No. You have to trust me. Both of you. Please trust me."

Both men looked on, horrified as Thea walked into the empty chamber and shut the door behind her. She counted off quickly before slamming a hand down on the console. Wilf's door clicked open. Thea crumpled. Slowly. Painfully, as her chamber was flooded with lethal radiation. As she fell, she let out a high keening noise from the back of her throat, an agonized expression twisting her features. It was all she could do to curl up on the floor and wait for it to be over.

The door clicked open.

For a long moment nothing happened. The room that had been exploding with sound and movement only minutes before was now impossibly still.

After what felt like an eternity, Thea peeled herself off the floor, staggering to stand in front of Wilf and the Doctor.

"Thea please," the Doctor begged. "Let me out. I can fix this. I'll fix this. Please just-"

He was cut off by the sound of the sonic screwdriver and his cuffs clicking open. The Doctor made to run over to his companion, but she raised a hand, stopping him in his tracks.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way."

Her voice was soft as she reached a shaking hand to her collar, pulling a long chain out from under her shirt. She pulled the necklace over her head, letting the small silver pendant rest in her palm. On first glance, the pendant looked simple, round, like something you could buy at a flea market for 5 pounds. But it wasn't. It was a fob watch, no bigger than a pound coin. She let the sonic slip from her fingers and clatter to the floor, running her fingertips across the surface of the watch.

She met the Doctor's eyes for a moment. "I'm so sorry it had to happen like this."

She opened the watch.

A bright golden light spilled across Thea's face as she stared, unblinking, into the brightness.

An eternity, or a few moments later, the light stopped. Thea kept staring for a few seconds before going completely limp and collapsing to the ground. The Doctor's arms were the only thing that kept her from hitting the floor, catching his unconscious companion inches from impact. 

Wilf was by their side in an instant. "Doctor, what just happened? Is she..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

"I don't know, this isn't possible. She should be dead." The Doctor was panicking, his free hand flitting about, first checking Thea's pulse manually, then grabbing for the sonic screwdriver to check again.

By this point even Wilf could see Thea's chest move. She was taking shallow, uneven breaths, but she was breathing.

"She's not dead?" Wilf was tentative, he still couldn't believe his eyes.

The Doctor shook his head, his eyes wide with shock.

"That's good isn't it?" Wilf asked again, louder this time. "You said the radiation was five hundred thousand rads, enough to kill anyone. But it didn't kill her, she's breathing and got a pulse and everything."

"She's got two pulses." The Doctor whispered.

"What'd you mean she's got two pulses?"

"I _mean_ she's got two hearts. I have two hearts. I think... I think that necklace she was wearing was a chameleon arch."

Wilf just gave him a blank look.

"She's a Time Lord."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter and *might* be filler adjacent, but enjoy!

_She's a Time Lord_

The words were still rattling around the Doctor's head as he stared down at his companion.

This couldn't be real.

But it was.

But she couldn't be.

But she was.

How?

He reached over to where her necklace had fallen to the ground. Her chameleon arch. There wasn't a shred of doubt at what it was the second he picked it up. He could even sense the perception filter that had been placed on it if he looked close enough. The Doctor shoved the necklace in his pocket to worry about later.

Wilf was still there, the Doctor realized vaguely. He had been worrying and asking questions the whole time, but the Doctor had tuned him out completely. The Doctor was still rude, apparently. 

The Doctor gathered Thea into his arms, picking her up easily. He could feel her pulse where his fingertips pressed into her skin. That rapid pattern of four that he had to keep reminding himself wasn't his own pulse. Honestly, it was more than a little unnerving. His mind kept racing like a bit of computer code stuck in an infinite loop he couldn't get out of. It seemed like every question in the Doctor’s mind was screaming at him and just wouldn't shut up. There were the normal questions (mostly how and why) but one thought just refused to go away. If Thea had been using a chameleon arch all this time, who was she? The Doctor didn't even know the person he was holding in his arms and that thought scared the pants off him.

"Come on, Wilf." The Doctor muttered as he stood and walked towards the TARDIS. 

* * *

The first thing the Doctor did was get Wilf home safe. He felt a little bad figuratively tossing Wilf to the wolf that was Sylvia Noble, but Wilf more than understood.

"This won't be the last time I see you, Doctor. I know it." Wilf had said.

The Doctor had hung around just long enough to know that Donna was alright before taking off for the vortex.

It didn't take long for the day's events to hit the Doctor like a Retellian freighter. He barely had enough time to set the TARDIS to safely drift in the vortex before his hands started shaking. 

The Doctor fisted his hands through his already spiky hair. This would not do. He was the Doctor. He was fine. He was always fine.

He would never admit how shaky the next few breaths he took really were.

The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS console, staring into the middle distance. He ran his fingers over Thea's necklace over and over. No, not her necklace. Her chameleon arch. The problem was it was like no chameleon arch he had ever seen. It didn't... feel right. Chameleon arches shouldn't be able to heal wounds, and they certainly shouldn't leave the user unconscious. It wasn't normal, but then again, nothing about the Doctor's life had ever been normal.

Thea was still unconscious, lying on the jump seat where the Doctor had placed her. He stared at her face, as if trying to find the Time Lord in her features. It was like one of those spot the difference pictures, spot the difference between the human he had been traveling with this morning and the Time Lord in his TARDIS. He should get her to medical. He kept staring. Some might call it brooding.

It seemed like the Doctor spent an interminable time brooding, but eventually he reached out and touched Thea's wrist. The pattern of four was still there.

"Get on with it already," the Doctor muttered to himself.

The TARDIS seemed to agree with this statement, because a set of doors behind the central console opened themselves onto a hallway, the infirmary doors clearly visible.

The Doctor sighed. If the TARDIS had to resort to rearranging rooms, he must have been lagging for much too long. 

He gathered Thea in his arms again and walked to the infirmary. 

"Thanks, old girl," he murmured softly as the infirmary doors silently opened themselves as he approached.

It didn't take long to get Thea situated on the exam bed in the center of the room. The infirmary was small today; the Doctor only needed one bed, so there was only one bed. The rest of the room was open and bright, the many screens scattered about the room turning on automatically when he walked in, ready for diagnostics and treatment. There were cabinets and tables lining the perimeter of the room, cupboards filled with every imaginable medical supply, and a few of the unimaginable ones thrown in for good measure.

Thankfully (and somewhat surprisingly given the life he led), the Doctor didn't need to use the infirmary very often. Thea hadn't even seen it yet. A normal doctor might have been a bit overwhelmed at the sheer amount of stuff that could be found if you started rummaging through cabinets, but the Doctor wasn't. After settling his patient on the bed, the Doctor hooked up the proper monitors, put on his brainy specs, and started running every scan he could think of.

Every test said the same thing. Time Lord.

Even the heart rate monitor was beeping that familiar pattern of four.

"Fine," the Doctor sighed as he rubbed his face, knocking his brainy specs askew. "She's a Time Lord. Got that."

He leaned against one of the counters.

Tea. He needed tea. Tea made everything better. It even saved the world once. Sort of.

"Don't go anywhere." He told Thea's unconscious form on the exam bed. The Doctor didn't really want to leave her alone in case she woke up, but a hum of reassurance from the TARDIS was all he needed to start out on his quest. Besides, he would only be gone a few minutes. 

A few more than a few minutes later, the Doctor returned with two cups of tea. One was for Thea. He figured she might want it when she woke up, especially since the TARDIS could keep it warm for her.

The Doctor gazed at his patient as he sipped his tea. She was still wearing the same clothes she had been this morning. He had considered a hospital gown for half a second, but it felt too intrusive. Same with all the blood tests he could've run. As far as the Doctor could tell, Thea wasn't dying, so he had no reason to intrude on her privacy.

The Doctor's eyes landed, almost without reason, on the cuff of Thea's jeans. It had bunched up at some point to reveal...

Was that a vortex manipulator?

Setting down his tea, the Doctor went over and pushed the cuff up a little more. Thea actually had a vortex manipulator strapped around her ankle. And a small knife tucked into her boot, apparently.

The Doctor pulled out both items. The knife (small, steel, leather sheath, completely normal) was quickly set aside. The Doctor didn’t particularly like knives. He didn’t hate them as much as he hated guns, but he still didn’t like them. Only idiots carried knives. Carrying a weapon wasn’t exactly a point in Thea’s favor, but he cautiously decided to give Thea the benefit of the doubt. After all, he hadn’t seen her use it on anyone.

The vortex manipulator required closer inspection. He picked up the chunk of leather, turning it over in his hands.

Why did Thea even have this? If she had a vortex manipulator, why had she been working in a shop when they first met? 

Then the Doctor scanned the thing. It was useless, completely broken. Not beyond repair if you could get the right parts, but certainly not using 21st century technology. The heyleron buffer was completely shot, most of the overflow connectors were snapped in half, and the power cells were just gone.

The Doctor set the vortex manipulator down with a frown. Thea hadn't just been in the 21st century, she had been completely stranded by something that had thoroughly incapacitated her only means of transportation. And even though she had been stranded, she still hadn't asked him for help. He would've thought she hadn't asked because she didn't want him to find out she was a Time Lord, but she had come traveling with him anyway. None of this made any sense.

A soft beep filled the room. Another scan was finished.

A sigh escaped the Doctor's lips as it said the same thing as all the others: Time Lord.

"Time Lord," the Doctor muttered as he picked up his tea. He had more than enough proof to still be doubting that particular fact. He still had no idea how this was possible, but he couldn't get any answers until Thea woke up.

The Doctor took a sip of tea. All he could do was wait. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what time it is? It's backstory time!

Even as the Doctor waited for his companion to wake up, his mind was running. Running through possibilities and questions. Somehow, the Doctor started thinking about when he met Thea for the first time.

* * *

The Doctor slammed through the door of the first shop he could find as the massive purple fireball lit up the streets. The door might have been locked, but whatever. With any luck, everyone would just think it was some students or a publicity stunt. Or a gas explosion. Or... honestly the Doctor couldn't care less what everyone thought of his most recent saving of everybody's lives.

"Hi, we're closed." A female voice came from the back of the shop. "Also, that door was definitely locked so if you're looking to rob us you would probably have better luck with the jewelry store around the corner."

The Doctor turned around to see a young woman wearing an apron behind the counter. The Doctor appeared to be in some sort of cafe advertising 'a revolution in pressed juice' and 'the most kale-a-riffic smoothie in London'.

He frowned at the woman for a moment. "Why are you trying to convince me to rob a jewelry store?"

"I'm not?" She shrugged. "I just can't think of any other reason you would be breaking in here at night."

"I'm not trying to rob you."

"Oh, okay."

They stared at each other for a few moments.

"So..." She said. "Why exactly did you come in here? You're not exactly our usual clientele."

Before the Doctor could even wonder what the shop's 'normal clientele' would be, the front window shattered, spraying chunks of glass as far back as the counter where the woman was standing.

"Get down!" The Doctor yelled.

The woman ducked behind the counter, peering over the edge at the thing that had just busted the window

The Doctor was next to her in seconds.

"What the hell is that?" She hissed.

A mechanical spider-like creature the size of a microwave had just crawled through the shattered window.

"It's called a Ressian mite, the actual creature is tiny, but it builds the exoskeleton out of interlocking blocks made of whatever it finds. Usually metal. Those little buggers were the scourge of 3 systems. They consume any available materials so they can replicate." The Doctor sounded much more fascinated with the process than he probably should've.

"Replicate? You mean there are more of those things?"

"No, of course not!" The Doctor actually sounded a bit offended.

The woman gave him a look.

"There were, but I destroyed them. They would've overrun the city in a day, and I couldn't let that happen. I guess I missed one."

"Okay, so whatever you did before just do it again and destroy this one." The woman sounded astonishingly calm.

The Doctor looked a bit sheepish and ran a hand through his hair, which somehow managed to stand up even more shockingly than it had been when he first entered the shop.

"I can't," he said. "I used photoaskerite to break down the proteins holding the blocks together, but I used it up."

"Okay," she glanced back over the counter at the mite which was now crawling over one of the tables. "So, we just need something to break down proteins, right? It doesn't have to be... whatever it was you just said?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It doesn't even have to be particularly strong. It could be hydrochloric acid, or obitrll, or chymotrypsin, the natives of Bartaxx 7 used a certain kind of tree sap-"

"What about bromelain?" She asked suddenly.

"I guess that would work." The Doctor remarked, glad to add to the list of things he didn't have.

The woman opened up one of the small refrigerators under the counter the two were hiding behind and pulled out a large glass bottle.

"Pineapple juice," she said, holding the bottle out to the Doctor. "Pineapples have bromelain in them."

The Doctor looked at the bottle then back at the woman.

He was silent for a moment.

"Of course!" He suddenly shouted, grabbing the bottle. "Smoothies! That's brilliant-" the Doctor trailed off when he remembered he had never asked the woman's name. She might've been wearing a name tag, but he hadn't bothered to read it.

He just settled for a manic grin as he jumped to his feet and hurled the entire bottle at the mite, where it shattered on impact. The woman stood up next to him just in time to see the mite unceremoniously break into nothingness without so much as a clang of metal against the floor.

"I guess it's dead then." She remarked.

A quick sweep of his sonic screwdriver confirmed the mite was dead and there weren't any more.

"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor said out of nowhere. He figured at this point he should probably introduce himself, though he seemed to be doing things a bit backwards today.

"Thea." She introduced herself.

The Doctor turned towards her with a smile, less manic than his last one. "Nice to meet you. How did you know bromelain is in pineapple juice?"

Thea shrugged. "Internet?"

"So, in your spare time you go online and learn about pineapples?" He asked.

"It wouldn't be the weirdest thing people do on the internet." She surveyed the shop, taking in the broken window, overturned tables, and shards of glass all over the floor, mixed in with puddles of pineapple juice. "This is going to be a bitch to clean up. If I don't get fired first."

A frown flitted across the Doctor's face. He didn't want Thea to get blamed for all the mess he had caused by not making sure all the mites were dead. He’d already hurt enough people with his carelessness and didn’t want to hurt another, especially when she’d been the one to save the day with random internet facts and pineapple. There was a time when he would just ask someone like her to go traveling in the TARDIS with him and forget about the consequences. There was a part of him that wanted to do that now. It didn't help that he had been traveling alone looking for trouble and Thea was exactly the kind of person he would want to travel with. _No,_ the Doctor reminded himself. He couldn't do that anymore. Not after what had happened to Donna. What he had done to Donna.

The Doctor pointed his sonic at the ceiling, momentarily filling the shop with its signature high pitched whirr. When he was done, he put it back into the pocket of his coat.

"There," the Doctor said with a smile.

"What did you do with your glowing stick?" Thea asked, deadpan.

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor corrected in a teasingly hurt tone. "I doctored the security camera footage. Now it'll look like someone threw a brick through the window."

"Won't that look suspicious if there isn't a brick anywhere in here?" She folded her arms with a smirk.

The Doctor let out an exasperated huff. "Humans. Every time." He pulled a brick out of a coat pocket that was much too small to hold such an object. He tossed it carelessly on the floor. "There. Now the most you'll be on the hook for is leaving out a bottle of juice. Happy?"

Thea brightened. "Yup! Do you want a smoothie?"

"One of the most 'kale-a-riffic smoothies in London'?"

"I really hate that ad." She muttered with a wince.

The Doctor let out a laugh.

"We have normal stuff too, strawberry, blueberry, banana." Thea went behind the counter and opened one of the freezers. They were out of apple and passion fruit, but they had everything else.

"Banana?" The Doctor's interest was immediately peaked.

She pulled out the container of frozen banana a shook it where the doctor could see the frozen fruit.

"I promise I wouldn't put any kale in it."

"Kale?" The Doctor was aghast. "You can't put kale with banana! There's a bird on the second moon of Rhegrix that's so allergic to kale that it will literally explode if it eats any. Kale is banned in the entire system. Bananas on the other hand..."

It didn't take long for Thea to make a normal banana smoothie, which in this case involved almond milk, date syrup, and maca powder (all organic of course), and a mixed berry one for herself. She handed the Doctor his smoothie which effectively stopped the exultation of bananas that had been going non-stop for the past 10 minutes.

The Doctor took a sip and hummed in approval.

"Good?" Thea asked as she leaned against the counter to taste her own drink. She would have sat but every available surface was peppered with chunks of glass.

"Bananas are always good." The Doctor retorted, somewhat offended at the idea of something banana flavored tasting bad. It was simply unthinkable.

She smiled. "Well, you saved my ass and my job so it's the least I could do to thank you."

The Doctor just smiled again and drank more of his smoothie.

"So, if the bug thing is alien, how did it get here?" Thea asked.

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor remarked. "Whenever there's something out there in the universe, it always seems to find its way to earth. You humans seem to attract trouble just by blinking."

"Well if you're always following the trouble it doesn't sound so bad. At least someone’s there to fix everything."

"I don't follow trouble!" The Doctor sounded indignant. "I just... travel."

"So, the trouble finds you?" She took another sip of her smoothie.

"Yup!" The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. "It seems like no matter where in the universe I go, there always seems to be some kind of trouble to find."

Most people wouldn't be happy about getting into trouble wherever they went, but the Doctor seemed to relish in it.

"All over the universe?" Thea grinned. "Wow. I guess you're some kind of jeopardy friendly spaceman."

Spaceman. All it took was a single word to send a chill down the Doctor's spine. He was getting too familiar. Again. Damnit why did he keep doing that? He reminded himself yet again, for about the millionth time this week, that getting close to people gets them hurt. He glanced down at the half empty smoothie cup in his hands. This would only end in pain and death, probably for Thea who didn't ask for any of his bullshit in her life.

He must've been silent for too long.

"You okay?" Thea asked. Damn perceptive humans. Damn human emotions, he shouldn't even be having those anyway.

The Doctor put on a grin. "Of course! Just figured I'd better be going. More shops to save, some planets to rescue from the brink of annihilation and all that."

Thea didn't look like she bought it.

"Oh," she raised an eyebrow matter-of-factly. "Because it looks like you need to talk about something. Something distinctly not fine."

The Doctor's eyes flashed dark for an instant. He would not bring more people into his disaster of a life.

"Nothing comes to mind." His voice was tight as he waited to gauge Thea's reaction.

To his relief, she just shrugged. "Whatever, it's your business."

Thea tossed her empty smoothie cup into a nearby bin as she walked behind the counter to quickly but efficiently clean the blender and put everything back into its proper place. She then grabbed a slip of paper, wrote something on it and held it out to the Doctor.

"You need someone to talk to? Call me."

He took it. It was a phone number written on the back of one of the shop's business cards.

The Doctor frowned. "Why would you give me this? We don't even know each other."

Thea stuffed her apron behind the counter, exchanging it for a light jacket.

"That's the good thing about strangers," she told him. "You don't have to prove anything to them. So, no judgement. Think about it."

With that, she turned and walked out the front door, disappearing into the night without another word.

The Doctor's brow furrowed as he watched her leave. What was it with humans that made them so annoyingly persistent? She can't possibly expect him to actually call to talk. It was ridiculous.

But as he walked back to the TARDIS with full intent of going out into the universe and looking for some trouble, he slipped the card into his pocket.

* * *

The Doctor almost called the number a couple of times. Once, when he had gone to see the solar shift in the Ubinjic system. He had started talking out of habit, describing how the planets changed from orbiting one star to another. He cracked a joke before the responding silence reminded him, he was alone. Then, after fighting the Cybermen with Jackson Lake and Rosita in 1851. 'All those bright and shining companions' Jackson had said. The Doctor was lonelier than he had ever been, but still, in the end they all break his hearts. All he ever did was hurt the people he cared about. He didn't want to hurt anyone ever again.

* * *

It was a while before The Doctor returned to the pretentious smoothie shop in London. He wasn't even sure why he had landed there. Maybe he hadn't and the TARDIS was just taking him where he needed to be, but the Doctor landed right outside the shop window about a month after he had been there the first time.

Thea was working at the counter just like she had been last time, except now a customer seemed to be arguing at her about something. And yes, the Doctor did mean _at_ her, Thea seemed to be doing her best to stay professional, but the customer was having none of it.

Honestly, she looked miserable and... wrong somehow. Like she didn't belong. It was like her entire being was crying out for some kind of help it didn't know how to ask for.

Or he could have been projecting, just a little bit. But imagined or not, help was the one request the Doctor never refused.

The Doctor breezed through the front door in a swirl of trench coat and past the line of people who were apparently all willing to pay £15 for some juice. As he approached the counter, he could hear what the customer, a middle-aged woman with a knockoff designer handbag, was so upset about.

"I demand a new drink. I saw you put ice in it from that bucket behind the counter. It tastes awful now."

"Ma'am we always put ice in the smoothies, so they blend correctly."

"I don't care! This is false advertising! You claim all your smoothies are organic and then you go and put ice in it!"

"What?"

"If. You. Put. Ice. In. The. Smoothies. It. Must. Be. Organic. I could sue for false advertising!"

"Ice is organic. It's literally just really cold water."

"Do you think I'm an idiot? I know what ice is! You can't just go around treating customers this way. I want to talk to your manager! I am going to tell the owner about you, and you are going to be fired!"

When the Doctor got to the counter, he whipped out his psychic paper and shoved it under the customer's nose. He honestly couldn't care less what it said, but the woman promptly shut up and stepped back from the counter.

"Doctor?" Disbelief flooded Thea's tone, the one-word question saying much more than it might've appeared.

"Do you want to see the universe?" The Doctor didn't bother beating around the bush with fancy extra words, today he just wanted to be direct.

A sad longing filled Thea's eyes, like this had been something she had been waiting for centuries to hear but had never truly believed would ever be spoken.

"More than anything." She whispered.

"Then let's go."

Thea followed the Doctor out the door and into the TARDIS without so much as a backward glance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are wondering if this chapter was written just because I wanted to use the phrase 'kale-a-riffic' and have an alien threat defeated by pineapples, you are absolutely correct. Also anyone who knows what my alien bug things were based on gets an imaginary gold star sticker.


	4. Chapter 4

Thea still hadn't woken up by the time the Doctor had drained the last of his tea.

Setting the mug down on a counter, he started walking around the infirmary, aimlessly fiddling with a few of the bits and bobs scattered about.

Maybe he should have seen something like this coming. Not that she was a Time Lord, but that Thea wasn't normal. Honestly, she had an alien bug smash into her workplace, but did she freak out? Try to run? Nope. She just threw pineapple juice at it.

Even the first time the Doctor showed her the TARDIS, she didn't say it was bigger on the inside. That was his favorite part, and she didn't even say it.  
  
She had been lying. She had been lying the whole time and the Doctor did not like liars.  
  
Of course, this was the moment Thea decided to wake up.  
  
Her eyes flicked open, immediately squinting in the bright infirmary light. She pushed herself into a sitting position with a groan.  
  
"You'd think this would get a bit easier," Thea muttered, rubbing at her head with a spare hand. The transition always hurt, so now she was left with a splitting headache.  
  
"So you've pulled this trick before." The Doctor's voice came from beside the medical bed.  
  
Thea risked a glance over at him. The Doctor didn't look happy. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious, but it was more than enough time for him to get over the shock. By now the Doctor was probably more than a little suspicious about the Time Lord who had dropped herself into his lap.  
  
"Yeah," Thea said. "A couple times."  
  
"Why." It wasn't a question.  
  
Thea turned to sit cross legged, facing the Doctor head on.  
  
"Because humans are fun but they're not exactly the most durable species in the universe?" She tried to keep her tone light. The Doctor didn't seem to appreciate it.  
  
"Who are you?" He demanded.  
  
"My name's Thea. No, that's not the name I used on Gallifrey. I'm a Time Lord."  
  
The Doctor let out a snort at her answer.  
  
"The Time Lords are all dead and you expect me to believe you played human for fun and then just met me by accident?" The Doctor's voice bit just as much as it was meant to.  
  
"It wasn't for fun!" Thea hissed; her voice pained. "After the Time War started, I ran. I knew it wouldn't take long for someone to find me if I stayed a Time Lord, so I decided to hide out as a human. I needed to keep my memories and I didn't have a TARDIS, so I modified a chameleon arch. You running into me was a complete accident."  
  
The Doctor laughed. "You expect me to believe that?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Then tell me who you really are. Who you were on Gallifrey."  
  
Now it was Thea's turn to laugh. "If I just tell you who I am you would never believe me."  
  
"Try me." The Doctor challenged.  
  
Thea's face fell. It was not the reaction the Doctor had planned.  
  
"You really don't recognize me, do you?" She asked, voice impossibly small.  
  
"Recognize you?" The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. "Why the hell would I recognize you? You expect me to remember some random Time Lord I met centuries ago? Not to mention you've no doubt regenerated a few times since then. Honestly, why would you think I could possibly recognize you?"  
  
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed as Thea glanced down at her hands fidgeting in her lap. The Doctor was probably being rude. He didn't really care.  
  
"I thought you might be able to sense me. You know," she tapped the side of her head with a light fingertip. "Telepathically."  
  
"Telepathically." The Doctor repeated, deadpan. She was unbelievable. Telepathic links required a level of trust. A level of trust that Thea most definitely did not have. The doctor might have trusted her once, but that had all shattered the second he realized Thea had been lying about her very existence. As a French aristocrat once said, a door once opened may be stepped through in either direction, and Thea had not earned that possibility. Yes, he could sense she was a Time Lord, but his mind wasn't open enough to get anything else. The last time he had telepathically linked with anyone was with the Master, and only a few seconds in the Master’s mind had the Doctor shutting his own up tighter than the bank of Karabraxos.  
  
"Yeah," Thea sounded a bit sheepish. "I know you don't trust me, but it wouldn't have to be much."  
  
Thea held out her hand to the Doctor.  
  
Time Lords were primarily touch telepaths, needing physical contact to go into someone else's mind. The Doctor tended to touch his fingers to the other person's temples, allowing him to make as deep a mental link as he wanted. Touching someone's hand would only let him skim the surface.  
  
It only took a few seconds for the Doctor's curiosity to get the better of him.  
  
The instant he touched Thea's hand, her mind exploded into his metaphorical view. Something seemed familiar, but her surface mind was chaotic. It was like she'd never learned one single shielding technique in her entire life. It hurt.  
  
The Doctor pulled away, alarmed.  
  
Thea was quick to notice his reaction.  
  
"I regularly cram a Time Lord consciousness into a psi-null human brain," she explained. "I would make a psychologist's career if they could actually understand what's going on."  
  
He touched her hand again, much more ready for the chaos this time, and focused in on that familiar feeling he had gotten before. Then, the unthinkable happened. He recognized it. It had been so long forgotten it had faded into the background noise of the universe, but now... the Doctor recognized it.  
  
He pulled away out of pure shock, searching Thea's face as she looked up at him.  
  
He spoke her name. Not the one in English, but a name in Gallifreyan he hadn't used in centuries. In English, it would be a nickname, just one word: Stardust.  
  
Thea's eyes lit up.  
  
"Hi Dad."  
  
The Doctor's brain stopped. If his big old Time Lord brain had been a 21st century earth computer it would have done the blue screen of death.  
  
This wasn't possible.  
  
The Doctor had been a father once, and a grandfather too, but they were all dead. Burned in the Time War. Thea (she hadn't been called that then, but the Doctor had bigger problems than names right now) had been one of his youngest children. She hadn't even been halfway through the academy when the war struck. Her entire class had died in one of the first major attacks. The lost chapter, they were called.  
  
"It can't be," he said. He'd been saying that a lot lately.  
  
"It is. I promise it is. I know I look different, but..." Thea trailed off for a moment from her near frantic attempts to convince the Doctor she was who she said. "The night before I went to see the untempered schism. You took me to earth for the first time, remember? You'd taken me to other places but that was the first time I'd seen Earth. You said the Time Lords were great, but they didn't see everything. That they were too far away. The next day when I looked into the untempered schism, I tried to touch it. I'm not sure why I did it, but I've still got the scar. I've regenerated, but it's always been there."  
  
For the first time today, Thea honestly looked scared. Scared the Doctor wouldn't believe her. She was holding out her hand again, the opposite one as before, and there was indeed a scar crossing her palm.  
  
The Doctor stared, his brain running through every conceivable possibility. And then, just like that, he believed her.  
  
Thea found herself pulled into a bone crushingly tight hug, and consequently, half off the exam bed. She hugged back, hands twisting in the fabric of the Doctor's coat.  
  
"I thought you were dead." He whispered.  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"I thought I'd killed you like I'd killed everyone else."  
  
"You didn't."  
  
He suddenly pulled back to hold Thea by the shoulders, looking her over again. To her credit, Thea just sat there and let him.  
  
As the Doctor stared at his daughter, he still couldn’t quite believe she was alive. He could remember the attack that should've killed her. It was so clear in his mind it could've happened yesterday. The Academy itself was decimated with every student still inside. Hundreds of students, dead too quickly for any hope of regeneration. To a human they would have looked and acted like adults, but young Time Lords who were still in the Academy were just that. Young. They were _children_ and they had all died.  
  
In his darkest times, when the Doctor counted the Gallifreyan children who burned in the Time War, the lost chapter of the Academy was among that number. It didn't matter if he, personally, had killed them or not. He counted them. Even Thea.  
  
The Doctor didn't even hear the news until the next day. He had been too busy trying to find a way not to fight. To run, like he always had. The moment he realized the entire Academy was dead, the Doctor had felt anger burn through his soul. Anger and pain. His blood was both ice and fire as it ran through his veins, every beat of his hearts reminding him that this war was killing those he loved most.  
  
The Doctor took a shaky breath, realizing he had been clutching at Thea's shoulders like a drowning man clutching at a broken life raft. He had been getting lost in the memories again.  
  
"Thea... how is this possible? I remember the attack on the Time Lord academy. You couldn't have survived it. No one could have."  
  
Thea glanced away from the Doctor's face.  
  
"I wasn't there during the attack. I snuck out to go to the lower city. I needed some parts for my vortex manipulator. When I saw the attack, I ran. I..." She trailed off for a moment, as if deciding how much of her story to tell. "I didn't want to fight in a war. I knew everyone would assume I was dead, so I let them, and I left."  
  
It was clear how Thea felt about that particular decision. There was enough guilt and self-hatred in her eyes that it could probably be seen from the next star system.  
  
The Doctor knew that look well. He'd seen it on so many of his faces that it was like looking back onto a particularly unpleasant old friend.  
  
It was not a look he wanted to see on his daughter's face.  
  
The Doctor moved close again, pressing a soft kiss to Thea's forehead.  
  
"I forgive you." He said. It didn't matter that he had never blamed her and still didn't. It didn't matter that there was nothing to forgive.  
  
Thea looked up at him, her eyes filled with confusion.  
  
The Doctor just thanked every star in the skies that he didn't see mistrust in her eyes.  
  
"Why?" She asked.  
  
"Because." The Doctor said simply, extending a hand to help her off the exam bed.  
  
She took his hand.  
  
Every time someone had tried to forgive the Doctor for all the things he had done in his very long life, he had never really believed it. Thea probably wouldn't believe it either, like father like daughter and all that. It didn't matter if she didn't believe him, it was true.  
  
He was just glad he had gotten her back.  
  
The Doctor led the way back through the winding TARDIS corridors to the console room.  
  
As soon as the pair were in reach, the Doctor dropped Thea's hand and bounded up to the console, immediately pushing buttons and flipping switches with abandon.  
  
"How's Barcelona sound? I keep trying to get there, it never seems to work out. I don't mean the city Barcelona,"  
  
"The planet Barcelona?" Thea finished, sounding hopeful. "I hear they've got dogs with no noses."  
  
The Doctor laughed like it was the best joke ever.  
  
"That joke never gets old." He murmured with a grin before motioning to Thea, trying to get her to come closer in the style of a lunar parakeet.  
  
"Come on, grab the isentropic phase lever."  
  
Thea started moving forward on instinct before the Doctor's words fully registered in her brain. When she finally realized what he said, she froze in disbelief. "You want me to help?"  
  
The Doctor frowned, glancing up from his frantic dance around the console. He might not have let her so much as touch the TARDIS console when she was human, but she wasn't human. She had even helped him fly the TARDIS before, it had been a while, but... oh. The last time Thea had flown the TARDIS was when she was a child, before Gallifrey fell.  
  
He broke into a reassuring grin.  
  
"Of course I do! You've always been clever, too smart for your own good, even as a human. You should know how to fly a TARDIS. Now shake a leg! If you don't get that lever we'll end up at a Sunday tea on Y'kllix 4!"  
  
Thea's face broke into a smile as she jumped to grab the correct lever, flipping a few other switches on instinct before the Doctor had a chance to prompt her.  
  
The Doctor had never seen that particular look on Thea's face before. Human Thea had always looked just a little bit sad. He hadn't really noticed it until now, but looking back, Thea had a sadness about her ever since the day they first met. Probably because her family was so close and she thought she couldn't say anything.  
  
Time Lord Thea had looked sad, but she had also looked scared. Fear of rejection, fear of consequences, whatever fear it was the Doctor hated to see it in her eyes.  
  
This smile was better, a little tentative, but hopeful. The Doctor liked hope.  
  
The TARDIS lurched him out of his thoughts, throwing her two pilots around the console with a high pitched squeal that could roughly be translated as 'get off your pinstriped ass and pull the right lever!"  
  
"You holding on over there?" He shouted, throwing one leg up on the console to flip a switch he couldn't quite reach.  
  
"Always!" Thea shouted back.  
  
"Then Barcelona here we come!" 


End file.
